.....the Salafis of the North Caucasus are far from unanimous in their assessment of such actions because many of them, including some of their leaders, do not view ISIS as an Islamic pRuroject but rather as a narrowly political one that is dividing the umma rather than uniting it.

Such attitudes, Yarlykarpov continues, should be recognized and exploited so that there can be cooperation with the Salafis rather than a new round of hostility based on the notion that ISIS is Salafi and therefore all Salafis are for ISIS. “This is a mistake,” he says, “and can only lead to the further loss” of Russian influence on these communities.

Unfortunately, as the detention of Daghestani Salafi leader Mukhammad Magomedov over the weekend shows, the scholar says, the Makhachkla authorities are acting in exactly the opposite way, a decision that may very well have extremely negative consequences in the current environment.